In October, we went over two healthcare EDI transactions: EDI 834 and 837. This week, we’ll take a look at two more healthcare facets of EDIConnect: the ability to handle EMRs and compliance with HL7.

Electronic Medical Records (EMRs)

Electronic medical records (EMRs) are electronic records generated and maintained by hospitals and healthcare organizations. They are a vast improvement over paper records. They allow more than one person to use a patient’s chart, are better organized, eliminate illegible handwriting, and allow storage of more information.

The demand for healthcare systems with Electronic Medical Records (EMR) interfaces is rising. This increase is due to many factors, including the growing adoption of EMR systems and emerging clinical healthcare data standards such as HL7.

Health Level-7

Health Level-7(HL7) refers to a set of international standards for software applications used by healthcare providers for clinical and administrative transaction data. The HL7 standards are produced by the Health Level Seven International, an international standards organization, and are adopted by other standards issuing bodies such as American National Standards Institute and International Organization for Standardization.

HL7 International specifies a number of flexible standards, rules, and procedures for healthcare systems used by hospitals and other healthcare provider organizations to communicate with each other. This helps information to be shared and processed in a uniform and consistent manner and allow hospitals and healthcare organizations to easily share clinical information.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) format also plays a very important role with EMR files and records. It helps to share clinical and other administrative data and medical records across different healthcare systems as well as individuals. Patients can also access their medical records through internet, allowing them to stay well-informed about their health status and ongoing medical treatments.

EDIConnect

Astera Software provides a complete solution for handing documents such as EMR and many others such EDI documents. EDIConnect offers a user friendly and intuitive user interface to accurately and efficiently handle bi-directional EDI data integration. It is scalable and powerful enough to fulfill entire EDI transaction processes.

EDIConnect Benefits:

Handles electronic medical records and HL7 documents.

Powerful and scalable

Fast, comprehensive and accurate data exchange

Easy to use graphical interface for both technical and business users.

So many of you reviewed our products, and now we have our Apple Watch Series 2 winner! Thank you all for writing in, and congratulations to Michael Cook from the General Council on Finance and Administration.

It’s the holiday season, and we’re giving our wonderful customers the chance to win something spectacular! We’ll give you a hint as to what it is: it’s new and shiny and rhymes with, “Snapple Swatch.”

If you use ReportMiner or Centerprise and give us a verified review on G2Crowd, we’ll give you a present back: a $25 Amazon gift card! In addition, you’ll be entered into a raffle to win an Apple Watch Series 2.

Many documents have newspaper-style formatting, which contains more than one column with a repeating pattern of records. As a result, the layout is more complex than a single-column document, and extracting useful information can pose a challenge.

ReportMiner 7 now provides a Multi-Column layout option to handle documents with multiple columns. In the past, if documents had more than one column with a repeating pattern, it would be very difficult to extract information from all the columns in a clean and efficient manner. This was due to the way in which the software looks for information: it scans the data in horizontal sweeps. With the latest version of ReportMiner, you can now process your multi-column documents within minutes for perfectly editable and searchable data.

Here’s how to use ReportMiner 7’s Multi-Column feature:

First, load your multi-column document in ReportMiner.

Add a Data Region to create matching patterns.

In this case, we’ll create a matching pattern for Names and Phone Numbers in the document.

Next, add Data Fields for Names and Phone Numbers in the document.

When previewed, the data is displayed accurately in a list format.

As seen in the screenshot below, a blank bar appears as soon as you check off the Multi-Column option in the Data Region. Click on the bar and a black dotted vertical line will appear indicating a column boundary. If a line is placed incorrectly, click on it within the bar to remove it and try again. Make sure that the line is flush with the left side of the first column of characters in your document.

Since there are three columns in the sample document, another column boundary is added just before the start of the second column. All records in both columns have now been successfully identified.

Preview your data and export it to a destination file type of your choice with easy access to the extracted information.

From one column to multiple columns, Astera can extract information with ease. Thanks to ReportMiner7, your data is more accessible than ever before.

Many businesses use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to send and receive messages. Last week we covered EDI source files and parsing. This week, we reach our number one feature for Centerprise’s EDIConnect connector: the EDIConnect Transaction Process.

EDI Builder and Destination File

To build an EDI document, use the EDI Builder feature. There are two steps in this process. First, build the EDI message using EDIConnect Visual Designer. Next, validate it against Partner Standards and send it out.

EDI Builder

Select File > New > Dataflow.

To create an EDI file, select the EDI Message Serializer from the Toolbox on the left as shown in the screenshot below. Drag and drop the EDI Message Serializer to the Dataflow.

Setting EDI Builder Properties

Right-click on the EDIBuilder message and select Properties. A dialog box opens as seen below. First, point this file to a Trade Partner Profile: this automatically selects the transaction type for the outgoing EDI message.

EDI Builder Structure

The EDI builder now has a structure for the selected transaction type in the previous step. Any problems and errors that occur during a preview are shown in the Errors section.

EDI Destination file

EDI destination files can also be selected from the toolbox and dragged and dropped into the Dataflow. Use the file properties to specify the location of the output file and the Trade Partner Profile data.

Mapping

Finally, map the EDI Builder file to the EDI Destination file as seen in the screenshot below. This Destination file will contain the final EDI message.

EDIConnect can be used to handle entire EDI transaction process. It supports all EDI message standards and customizes transaction documents: EDI transactions have never been easier.

That concludes our top 4 EDIConnect features! We hope that you’ve enjoyed this series and that you’ll check back next week for more exciting new information.

Businesses across the globe send and receive messages via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Last week we covered our Centerprise connector, EDIConnect’s, Custom Repository feature. Our focus this week are our number two features for EDIConnect: EDI Source Files and Parsing.

Once an EDI file has been received, validated, and once the acknowledge process is complete, it goes to a dataflow to be parsed and translated. After that, it can be transformed, mapped, and written to destination.

EDI Source File

This reads the incoming EDI messages. First, create a new Dataflow by selecting File > New > Dataflow. Once a new dataflow opens up, drag and drop the EDI Source File option from the toolbox on the left to the dataflow.

To preview EDI source file data, right-click on the EDI Source File box in the dataflow and select Preview Output.

The output is in hierarchical format as seen below.

EDI Parser

This generates the transaction structure that can be mapped to any destination. The Parser also includes the Trade Partner Profile file: all information required to parse a transaction is in one place. From here, users can specify all transaction sets expected from a partner.

The EDI Parser can be dragged and dropped in to the dataflow using the Toolbox on the left. To set its properties, right-click on it and select Properties. The screenshots below demonstrate the EDI Parser process.

Mapping

To map the EDI Parser to the EDI Source file, drag the Transaction Node of the EDI Source file onto the EDI Parser file.

Destination file

Once the EDI message has been parsed, it’s ready to be mapped to a destination file, such as an XML file as shown in the example below. Drag and drop the XML/JSON File Destination option from the Toolbox on the left under the Destinations category to the dataflow.

Make sure you specify the output file location and provide an XML Schema file that matches the EDI Parser transaction structure to the XML Destination File Properties.

Create a new Custom Repository

This will create an empty custom repo that contains all the standard definitions for transaction sets, segments, elements and composite elements.

Customize a Transaction Set

In the screenshot below, all the standard EDI Transaction sets are listed on the right and each transaction set’s details can be seen and modified once clicked.

Custom segments can also be added or deleted.

Customize Segments/Composite Elements/Elements

As with the transaction sets, every segment, composite element, and element can also be customized: EDIConnect is robust and powerful enough to handle various EDI transaction documents with ease. The screenshots below demonstrate the numerous possibilities to customize EDI documents.

All artifacts that come with standard EDI messages can be modified using EDIConnect and can be stored in an EDI Custom Repository.

Want to know more about EDIConnect? We’re covering our top four EDIConnect features over the next several weeks. Be sure to check back for the third installment!

Many businesses use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to send and receive messages. Last week we covered what EDI is and two specific use cases. This week, we take a closer look at how to get started with Astera’s Centerprise connector, EDIConnect. Below is our number four feature.

Trade Partner Management

The Trade Partner Management feature in EDIConnect allows users to set up trading partners, manage all aspects of trading partner relationships (such as inbound and outbound transaction maps definition and separators for segments,) and has ways to customize EDI message standards and use them within trade partner definition.

Specify Inbound Maps and Outbound Maps

Use this option to detail how transactions from the partner will be treated and the number of transactions expected from said partner. Choose from standard or customized versions of EDI messages, as well as standard or customized transaction processes.

Outbound maps are where the user can establish and customize which maps will be sent out to this partner.

Sequences

All sequence generations for a particular EDI partner are controlled by the properties specified in the Sequences tab (see screenshot below.) Options such as Database Information, Functional Group Control numbers, etc., can be set via the Sequences tab.

Want to know more about EDIConnect? We’re covering our top four EDIConnect features over the next several weeks. Be sure to check back for the second installment!

One of Astera’s Centerprise connectors, EDIConnect, offers a user friendly and intuitive user interface to accurately and efficiently handle bi-directional EDI data integration. It is scalable and powerful enough to fulfill entire EDI transaction processes. In this blog we are going to focus on how to handle benefit enrollment and healthcare claims data.

EDI 834 – Benefit Enrollment and Maintenance:

The EDI 834 transaction set represents a Benefit Enrollment and Maintenance document. It is a standard format for enrolling members in healthcare benefit plans. It helps electronically exchange health plan enrollment data between employers and health insurance carriers. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires all health plans or health insurance carriers to accept 834A Version 5010 which is a standard enrollment format.

The 834 document is submitted to transfer the enrollment information typically by the employer, to healthcare payer organizations who are responsible for payment of health claims and insurance/benefits. The recipient of an 834 transaction responds with a 999 Implementation Acknowledgement. This confirms whether the file was received and provides feedback on the acceptance of the document.

EDI 837 – Healthcare Claim:

The EDI 837 document is required for electronic submission of healthcare claims. It has a standard format established to meet HIPAA requirement for healthcare claim information. This document is used to submit health care claim billing information from healthcare service providers to sponsors.

Healthcare providers must be compliant with version 5010 of the HIPAA EDI standards. The 837 EDI transactions may be sent either directly or indirectly via clearinghouses.